University of Neuchâtel & Witwatersrand

Presentations

2021

Ader, L., Bitschnau, M., D’Amato, G., Ruedin D. ‘Changing Claims in Times of Discontinuity: The Politicization of Immigration and Integration in Switzerland’. Presented at the 26th World Congress of Political Science, Lisbon, 25-29 July.

Ader, L., Bitschnau, M., D’Amato, G., Ruedin D. ‘Changing Claims in Times of Discontinuity: The Politicization of Immigration and Integration in Switzerland’. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Swiss Political Science Association, Lucerne, 3-4 February.

Ader, L., Bitschnau, M., D’Amato, G., Ruedin D. ‘Changing Claims in Times of Discontinuity: The Politicization of Immigration and Integration in Switzerland’. Presented at the Southern Political Science Association Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 9-11 January.

Ader, L., Bitschnau, M., D’Amato, G., Ruedin D. ‘Shifting Claims on Mobility in Times of Turbulence: The Politicization of Migration during the Oil and Subprime Crises in Switzerland’. Presented at the Annual IMISCOE Conference, Malmö, 27 June.

Piccoli, L., Ruedin D. ‘Evidence for Transnational Political Engagement at the Local Level’. Presented at the Mobilities and Transnationalism in the 21st century Conference, Reykjavik, 28 April.

Ruedin, D. “Attitudes to Immigrants in South Africa: Personality and Vulnerability”, Presented at the Lunch Time Seminar, African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, 25 April. [Slides | Summary Paper]

2016Ruedin, D. 2016. “When Immigrants Are Preferred: A Case of Positive Discrimination in Hiring?”, Factorial Surveys Data Analysis Workshop, Bern, 9 November. [ Slides ]Using two online experiments, participants prefer the immigrant candidate in most instances, irrespective of the skills level required. Recruiters do not universally discriminate against individuals with immigrant names, and in some cases seem to prefer them for specific occupations.

2016 Ruedin, D. “The Politicisation of Immigration in Switzerland: The Importance of Direct Democracy”. Presented at the Support and Opposition to Migration in Portugal Seminar, Lisbon, 31 October. Invited Talk. [ Slides ]How direct democratic tools are used by political parties in the politicization of immigration in Switzerland; presentation of the Swiss chapter in Van der Brug et al. 2015.

2016 Ruedin, D. “Support and Opposition to Migration: Opening Session”. Presented at the Support and Opposition to Migration in Portugal Seminar, Lisbon, 31 October. Invited Talk. [ Slides ]Presentation of the SOM project.

Ruedin, D. 2016. “The Representation of Ethnic Groups in National Legislatures”. Presented at the 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology, Vienna, 12 July. [ Slides ]Longitudinal perspective on the political representation of ethnic groups in national legislatures around the world

Ruedin, D. 2016. “Why Do Immigrants Not Vote More Often When They Are Given the Opportunity?”, Annual IMISCOE Conference, Prague, 1 July. [ Conference Paper | Slides ]This paper examines why immigrants are less likely to vote. A new representative dataset on the political participation of immigrants in the 2015 municipal elections in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland is presented. Despite having the right to vote, most immigrant groups are less likely to vote than the majority population. While it cannot account for the entirety of differences, social origin accounts for a large part of the different probabilities to vote between nationalities.

Pecoraro, M. and Ruedin, D. 2016. “The Occupational Share of Foreigners and Attitudes to Equal Opportunities”. Presented at the 28th Annual Meeting conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), Berkeley, June 24-26. Presented by Marco Pecoraro.There is a negative association between the share of foreigners in one’s occupation and positive attitudes to equal opportunities for foreigners. At the same time, we observe a positive association between the share of recently arrived foreigners and positives attitudes to equal opportunities. This suggests that workers are at the same time wary of competition with foreigners and welcome their contribution to overcome the shortage of human resources.

Ruedin, D. 2016. “The Political Participation of Immigrants”. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Swiss Political Science Association, Basel, 21-22 January. [ Slides | Very Early Draft ]This paper uses individual-level data to examine the correlates of participation in local elections. Questions from SELECTS are used to examine political representation, but are enriched with questions relevant to immigrant origin. The data are a newly collected representative sample of individuals eligible to vote at the 2015 municipal election in the canton of Geneva.

Pecoraro, Marco, and Didier Ruedin. 2015. “More than This: The Occupational Share of Foreigners and Attitudes to Equal Opportunities”. Presented at the International Conference of Panel Data Users in Switzerland, Lausanne, 2 June. Presented by Marco Pecoraro.

Ruedin, Didier. 2015. “The Political Representation of Women and Ethnic Groups in Legislatures Around the World”. Presented at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, 5 February. Invited talk. [ Slides ]Political representation of women and ethnic groups in national legislatures and the relationship between the two.

Ruedin, Didier, and Pecoraro, Marco. 2014. “The occupational share of foreigners and attitudes to equal opportunities” presented at the ECPR General Conference, Glasgow, 5 September. [ Slides | Paper ]There is a negative association between the share of foreigners in one’s occupation and positive attitudes to equal opportunities for foreigners. At the same time, we observe a positive association between the share of recently arrived foreigners and positives attitudes to equal opportunities. This suggests that workers are at the same time wary of competition with foreigners and welcome their contribution to overcome the shortage of human resources.

Meyer, Sarah, and Ruedin, Didier. 2014. “Politicization from Below? The Deportation Issue in Public Discourse in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany” presented at the ECPR General Conference, Glasgow, 6 September. [ Slides | Paper ]Deportation has become a central element of immigration control, particularly of asylum seekers whose application has been rejected. We analyse the politicization of deportation in three countries – Austria, Germany, Switzerland – between 1993 and 2013 drawing on media coverage on the issue. It seems that the politicization of deportation is mainly bottom-up. Individuals threatened by deportation and NGOs and churches are the dominant actors in protests against deportations. Protest is about as likely to focus on individual deportation cases than policy. Unconventional forms of political participation are common, but once the issue of deportation has become politicized political parties increasingly join the debate.

Ruedin, Didier and Marco Pecoraro. 2014. “The occupational share of foreigners and attitudes to equal opportunities” presented at the IMISCOE Annual Conference, Madrid, 27-9 August. [ ☆ Short-listed for the Rinus Penninx Award | Slides | Paper ]There is a negative association between the share of foreigners in one’s occupation and positive attitudes to equal opportunities for foreigners. At the same time, we observe a positive association between the share of recently arrived foreigners and positives attitudes to equal opportunities. This suggests that workers are at the same time wary of competition with foreigners and welcome their contribution to overcome the shortage of human resources.

Ruedin, Didier. 2014. “Obtaining Party Positions on Immigration: Comparing Different Methods” presented at the FORS/UNIL Methods and Research Meetings, Lausanne, 29 April. Invited talk. [ Flyer | Slides ]Updated and extended version of this paper and this article. To what extent it is possible to obtain party positions (on immigration) when there is only a limited amount of political text available? The paper compares different methods (variations of: experts, manual coding, automatic coding), paying special attention to comparability across countries (N=8) and time (N=20).

Ruedin, Didier. 2014. “Les étrangers dans différentes professions et attitudes vis-a-vis l’égalite des chances” presented at the Rencontre Scientifique MAPS, Neuchâtel, 15 April. [ Slides ]There is a negative association between the share of foreigners in one’s occupation and positive attitudes to equal opportunities for foreigners. At the same time, we observe a positive association between the share of recently arrived foreigners and positives attitudes to equal opportunities. This suggests that workers are at the same time wary of competition with foreigners and welcome their contribution to overcome the shortage of human resources.

Ruedin, Didier, and Sieglinde Rosenberger. 2014. “The Politicization of Immigrant Groups in a Comparative Perspective” presented at the Annual Conference of the Swiss Political Science Association, Bern, 30 January. [ Slides ]Examines how immigrant groups are politicized, to which extent groups are addressed by different political actors, what frames are invoked, and in what ways different groups would be affected by claims raised in political debates at national levels.

Ruedin, Didier. 2013. “Political behaviour between representation and politicization” presented at the Department of Methods in the Social Sciences, University of Vienna, 4 October. Invited Talk. [ Slides ]Highlights similarities between the representation of women and the representation of ethnic groups. Salience, derived from the composition of the population, can explain differences, but this does not apply to immigration. Parties react to changes in salience of immigration.

Ruedin, Didier and Marco Pecoraro. 2013. “Einstellungen gegenüber Ausländern: Bildung, Arbeitslosigkeitsrisiko, und Werte” presented at the Dreiländertagung, Innsbruck, 20 September. Presented by Didier Ruedin. [ Working Paper | Slides ]This paper examines individual attitudes towards foreigners. Individuals with low levels of education tend to oppose foreigners, while the opposition by individuals with high levels of education increases with the risk of unemployment. Values and beliefs explain the negative attitudes of individuals with low levels of education, but not the association with the risk of unemployment for individuals with high levels of education.

Ruedin, Didier, Laura Morales, Peter Thomas, and Jean-Benoit Pilet. 2013. “Immigration in the Party Political Agenda: A Comparative Analysis of Party Manifestos in Six European Countries” presented at the ECPR General Conference, Bordeaux, 6 September. Presented by Didier Ruedin. [ Slides | Paper | Codebook ]This paper analyses the politicization of immigration in the party political agenda through a comparative analysis of electoral party manifestos since the 1990s in Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland.

Ruedin, Didier. 2013. “Public opinion towards different immigrant groups” presented at the IMISCOE Annual Conference, Malmö, 27 August. [ Slides | Paper ]New survey to examine to what extent public opinion towards different immigrant groups varies. Public opinion is most negative towards immigrants from ‘distant’ cultures and those more likely to receive welfare benefits. The patterns of opinion are alike for all groups in society, levels vary by education, age, ideology and values, individual anxiety, and individual motivations to control prejudice (MCP).

Ruedin, Didier. 2013. “Migration and Development: Bosnians in Switzerland” presented at the Joint Workshop: BiH Diaspora and Development, Sarajevo, 3 July. Invited talk. [ Slides ]Preliminary look at the Bosnian diaspora in Switzerland, with a special focus on migration and development

Ruedin, Didier. 2013. “Political Behaviour and Attitudes: Representation and Politicization” presented at Trinity College, Dublin, 10 June. Invited talk. [ Slides ]Highlights similarities between the representation of women and the representation of ethnic groups. Salience, derived from the composition of the population, can explain differences, but this does not apply to immigration. Attitudes toward immigrants are linked to values, but also the risk of unemployment.

Ruedin, Didier. 2013. “Claims-making as Representation for Disenfranchised Groups” presented at the Annual Conference of the Swiss Political Science Association, Zürich, 1 February. [ Slides | Paper ]This paper considers representation through political claims-making in the news. It focuses on immigrants as a (largely) disenfranchised group, and considers to what extent civil society organizations represent groups not part of the electorate. The results show that alternative channels for representation exist to ensure substantive representation to some extent.

2012Pecoraro, Marco, and Didier Ruedin. 2012. “Is the Link between Education and Attitudes towards Foreigners Driven by Differences in Cultural Values and Beliefs? Evidence from Switzerland” presented at the Increasing Heterogeneity in the Workforce and its Impact, Nürnberg, 6 December. Presented by Marco Pecoraro. [ Working Paper ]Individual attitudes towards foreigners in Switzerland, considering labour market competition and values.

Ruedin, Didier. 2012. “Political Behaviour between Political Representation and Politicization” presented at Korea University, Seoul, 29 November. Invited talk. [ Slides ]Highlights similarities between the representation of women and the representation of ethnic groups. Salience, derived from the composition of the population, can explain differences. The composition of the population, however, does not always directly translate into politicization. This is demonstrated by examining the politicization of immigrant groups, notably asylum seekers. Attitudes toward immigrants are linked to values, but also the risk of unemployment.

Ruedin, Didier, Sarah Meyer, Teresa Peintinger, and Sieglinde Rosenberger. 2012. “Contentious Groups in the Politicization of Immigration” presented at the Jahrestagung Migrationsforschung in Österreich, Vienna, 19 September. Presented by Didier Ruedin. [ Paper | Slides ]Using a political science perspective, this paper examines how the politicization of immigration constructs, creates and is concerned with different immigrant groups: Which groups are addressed by which actor and how are the groups portrayed (e.g. in broad discursive categories, according to legal status, country of origin, ethnicity, or religion)? In what way would these groups be affected by the claims raised in the debate?

Morales, Laura, Didier Ruedin, and Jean-Benoit Pilet. 2012. “Immigration Waves, Public Moods, and Policy Responses” presented at the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Conference, Oxford, 8 September. Presented by Laura Morales. [ Paper ]This paper examines the interrelations between immigration flows, public opinion moods, and policy responses empirically, using fresh data from an ongoing EU-funded project. With longitudinal data from seven receiving societies in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), the paper analyses to what extent differences in policy-making and the public mood respond to real inflows of immigrants, and to what extent policy responses are a result of the latter two.

Ruedin, Didier, and Laura Morales. 2012. “Obtaining Party Positions on Immigration from Party Manifestos” presented at the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Conference, Oxford, 7 September. Presented by Didier Ruedin. [ Paper | Slides | Codebook ]This paper explores whether it is possible to use political texts to obtain party positions on immigration. It is motivated by the lack of expert surveys that reach sufficiently far backwards in time. The paper compares different methods. The focus is on comparability across countries, although aspects of comparability across time are also covered.

Ruedin, Didier. 2012. “The Representation of Ethnic Groups in National Legislatures” presented at the Ethnic Politics and Electoral Democracy, Zürich, 14 June. [ Slides ]Concerned with levels of descriptive representation, the paper compares levels of ethnic group representation in over 100 democracies. It focuses on individual legislators rather than ethnic parties, and draws on a theoretical framework that combines institutional and cultural variables. Using comparative analyses, the paper considers the variables associated with levels of representation.

Meyer, Sarah, Teresa Peintinger, Sieglinde Rosenberger, and Didier Ruedin. 2012. “Contentious Groups in the Politicization of Immigration” presented at the CEU Conference Living Together in Diversity, Budapest, 21 May. Presented by Sarah Meyer and Teresa Peintinger. [ Slides ]The politics of immigration figures prominently in European societies, dealing with challenges posed by increasing diversity. Using a political science perspective, this paper examines how the politicization of immigration constructs, creates and is concerned with different immigrant groups.

Ruedin, Didier, and Joost Berkhout. 2012. “Patterns of Claims-Making on Civic Integration and Migration in Europe: Are Muslims Different?” presented at the Muslims and Political Participation in Britain, Edinburgh, 21 April. Co-presented. [ Working Paper | Slides ]This paper is interested in patterns of discursive interaction between Muslim groups on the one hand, and other political actors on the other hand. Using data from a large-scale media study, the paper provides aggregate statistical analyses of the patterns of claims-making across time (1995-2009) and across countries.

Morales, Laura, Didier Ruedin and Jean-Benoit Pilet. 2012. “Immigration Waves, Public Moods, and Policy Responses: A Comparative Analysis of Seven European Countries” presented at the ISA 2012 Annual Convention: Power, Principles and Participation in the Global Information Age, San Diego, 1 April. Presented by Laura Morales. [ Paper ]There is little work that focuses on the interrelations between immigration flows, public opinion moods, and policy responses. This paper examines this relationship empirically, with longitudinal data from seven receiving societies in Europe.

Morales, Laura, Didier Ruedin and Jean-Benoit Pilet. 2012. “Immigration Waves, Public Moods, and Policy Responses: A Comparative Analysis of Seven European Countries” presented at the 19th International Conference of Europeanists, Boston, 22 March. Presented by Laura Morales. [ Paper ]There is little work that focuses on the interrelations between immigration flows, public opinion moods, and policy responses. This paper examines this relationship empirically, with longitudinal data from seven receiving societies in Europe.

Ruedin, Didier, and Joost Berkhout. 2012. “Patterns of Claims-Making on Civic Integration and Migration in Europe: Are Muslims Different?” presented at the SOM Workshop, Brussels, 16 March. Co-presented. [ Slides ]This paper is interested in patterns of political participation in seven European societies with varying proportion of Muslim among the population. Using data from a large-scale media study, the paper provides rich descriptions of the patterns of claims-making across time (1995-2009) and across countries. Focusing on Muslims as one of multiple immigrant groups, we are interested in the development of the patterns of claims-making as a description of political participation.

Ruedin, Didier. 2012. “Contentious Groups in the Politicization of Immigration” presented at the SOM Workshop, Brussels, 16 March. [ Slides ]This paper will examine the extent to which the politicization of immigration is concerned with different immigrant groups. In particular, it addresses: Which groups are addressed? How would they be affected by the claims? By which (subject) actors? How are groups portrayed?

Ruedin, Didier. 2012. “Obtaining Party Positions on Immigration from Party Manifestos” presented at the Annual Congress of the Swiss Political Science Association, Lucerne, 3 February. [ Slides ]This paper explores whether it is possible to use political texts to obtain party positions on immigration. The paper compares: (1) expert surveys where they are available, (2) manual coding of manifestos using a conventional codebook, (3) manual coding using check-lists, (4) automated coding using Wordscores, and (5) automated coding using a dictionary of keywords.

Ruedin, Didier. 2011. “Immigration Waves, Public Moods, and Policy Responses” presented at the SOM Workshop, Amsterdam, 1 October.This paper examines the relationship between immigration flows, public opinion moods, and policy responses. Using longitudinal data from seven receiving societies in Europe, the paper will analyse to what extent differences in policy-making and the public mood respond to real inflows of immigrants, and to what extent policy responses are a result of the latter two.

Ruedin, Didier. 2011. “Immigration Waves, Public Moods, and Policy Responses” presented at the IMISCOE Annual Conference, Warsaw, 9 September. [ Slides ]This paper exmined the relationhip between immigration flows, public opinion moods, and policy responses. Using longitudinal data from seven receiving societies in Europe, the paper will analyze to what extent differences in policy-making and the public mood respond to real inflows of immigrants, and to what extent policy responses are a result of the latter two.

Ruedin, Didier. 2011. “Individual Representation: A Different Approach to Political Representation” presented at the Representation in Comparative Perspective, Budapest, 27 May. [ Working Paper | Slides | ☆ Short-listed for the SPSA Prize for the Best Political Science Journal Article by a Young Researcher 2014 ]This paper presents a new conceptualization and measure of political representation to complement existing approaches. Individual representation scores are calculated by comparing on the one hand the position of the individual vis-à-vis other citizens, and on the other hand the position of the individual vis-à-vis parliament. The paper demonstrates how individual representation scores are a useful addition to existing approaches by outlining how to make sense of individual representation scores.

Ruedin, Didier. 2011. “Measuring Descriptive Representation” presented at the Inequality and Representation in Europe, Dreiländertagung, Basel, 14 January. [ Slides ]This paper explores how the quality of descriptive representation can be enumerated. A measurement of descriptive representation needs to be able to deal with unordered groups. This paper outlines criteria an ideal measure of descriptive representation needs to fulfil.

Ruedin, Didier. 2010. “Practice and Consequences of Social Cohesion Programmes”. IMIS International Workshop presented at the Disciplining Global Movements. Migration Management and its Discontents, Osnabrück, 13 November. [ Slides | Paper (More recent version) ]Migration is increasingly global in nature, bringing into contact individuals from very different backgrounds. The differences in social, cultural, religious, and linguistic background are regarded as a challenge to receiving societies, not least with regard to social cohesion. This paper focuses on programmes on social cohesion to explore the impact of global migration. The nature of migration and social cohesion means that not all areas of migration are sufficiently manageable to enable so-called triple-win situations.

Ruedin, Didier. 2010. “Support and Opposition to Migration: A European Research Project” presented at the IMISCOE Annual Conference, Liège, 14 September. [ Slides ]Introducing the Support and Opposition to Migration (SOM) project. The presentation includes graphs on news stories in Switzerland and changing policy contexts to demonstrate the progress the project has made at this early stage.

Ruedin, Didier. 2010. “Ethnic Group Representation in a Cross-National Comparison” presented at the The Social and Economic Foundations of Ethnic Minority Political Representation, Manchester, 29 January. Invited Talk. [ Slides | ☆ Winner of the 2010 SNIS International Geneva Award ]Compares the levels of ethnic group representation in parliament in 101 democracies. Considering both electoral and cultural variables, the results cast doubt on whether the role of the electoral system in shaping political representation is dominant. Levels of ethnic group representation are best explained with cultural variables, in particular liberal attitudes towards marginalized groups in society.

2008Ruedin, Didier. 2008. “Measuring Women’s Status in Society” presented at the Graduate Research in Progress Seminars, Oxford Department of Sociology, 22 April. [ Slides | Working Paper ]It is argued that the proportion of women in parliament is a reasonably good indicator of the status of women in society, with the benefit of being based on readily available data.

Ruedin, Didier. 2005. “Tipping Models & Informational Cascades” presented at the MSc Revision Day, Oxford Department of Sociology, June. [ Slides with Comments ]This is an informal resentation, in which I use two companies as metaphors in order to compare and contrast tipping models and informational cascades. The presentation includes a suggestion of how to approach an exam question on the topic.